Upgrading laptop screen from FHD to 3K/4K

I own GT60 Dominator 2PC. It has MS-16F4 motherboard, Core i7-4700MQ processor (integrated GPU 4600). It originally came with GTX 870m but I recently upgraded this with GTX 980m. My existing laptop screen is FHD 15.6 IPS panel LED backlight.

Now, I want to extend this upgrade to screen as well. Recently, MSI has announced GT60 Dominator 2QE 4K Edition with GTX 980m/970m. It has same motherboard MS-16F4, same BIOS E16F4IMS.51A, same EC firmware 16F4EMS1.517 and offers similar CPU (i7-4710HQ). I've already bought a screen "LQ156Z1JW02 ultra high resolution 3200*1800 15.6". It's on its way and in a week time I'll have it. I bought this screen believing that my laptop has same specs as high end latest offering from MSI. So, there shouldn't a matter of putting more strain on the existing hardware.

My question is:

Do I need to upgrade the LVDS (video cable) of my laptop to support 3K or 4K resolution. If yes, can anyone provide me the part number of the video cable from any MSI GT60 with 4K screen laptop. My laptop has 40 Pin connector.

3 Respuestas

I'm afraid it's not possible. I have the laptop with the 3k screen and I broke it a few years ago. With replacements at the time being around $500 I bought a used 1080 screen off ebay hoping it would work, and it let the magic smoke out. The ribbon cable looks the same but must have a different pin layout.

Fortunately, it still works with an external monitor and I've been using it like that since. Now that screens are $80 used I'm trying to figure out how I can fix the laptop.

One thing is that, laptop screens usually have a cable with the correct number of connectors for the stock resolution. A higher resolution would require a cable with more contacts, in theory. But I don't know how that pc is built, and it could be different. But if you have to change a cable I can't imagine you would be able upgrade the screen.

So from my own research, I'd want to make sure that the cable and the connector on the display have the same number of pins. and display to display have the connector in the correct location/orientation. Since you already confirmed bios versions to be identical, you should be in the clear.

Currently, building a GT60, from scratch, have to love MSI for using the same boards across both series. Only differences I have discovered so far, are cables. and bezels, and display. If you know any one with a bricked GT60/GT70/or Rebrand, it's worth the money to pickup, a few minutes of rework for a chip replacement, can turn into some great profits.